Media Protect Obama By Ignoring Gasoline Price Rise

Bias: As of Tuesday, U.S. gasoline prices had increased for 32 straight days. The media, however, aren't interested. They would be, though, if a Republican — particularly a Bush — were in the White House.

According to the American Automobile Association, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.748 Tuesday, up from $3.730 on Monday and about 15 cents higher than a week ago.

A month ago that same gallon cost $3.304 and a year back it was $3.565. It was $1.83 a gallon the day before Obama was first inaugurated.

The media are providing a smattering of coverage of the rising prices. But the press is more concerned about President Obama's golf outing with Tiger Woods than it is about gasoline prices. And it sure isn't interested in blaming Obama for the rise.

America's media are offended by high gasoline prices only during a Republican's watch, and acutely so when that member of the GOP is an oil man, such as either president named George Bush.

Here's the history: The Media and Business Institute of the Media Research Center says that from Jan. 18 through Feb. 5, at which time prices had jumped 24 cents, the Big 3 networks had devoted an entire combined eight minutes of air time to the climbing prices.

George W. Bush never enjoyed that protection from the media.

"Although the national average climbed to $3.56 on Feb. 20, setting a February record after going up nearly a month straight," the Media and Business Institute reported a year ago, "there was far less coverage than in 2008." Yet, "Broadcast networks repeatedly covered the rise under the Bush presidency."

In March of last year, the Washington Post tried to explain "Why Obama gets less blame than Bush for high gas prices."

"Voters," according to the Post, "are far less likely to blame Obama for skyrocketing fuel costs than they were President Bush six years ago."

Why? "To begin with," said the Post, "Bush was simply less popular."

Yes, of course. Less popular. And how did that happen? Is it possible that the media had poisoned the public's mind about Bush while holding up Obama as the highest example of all things great and good?

Not only is it possible, it's a certainty.

How many members of the media, for instance, have said Bush was "sort of god" "standing above the country, above the world," as Newsweek editor Evan Thomas rapturously described Obama in 2009?

Bias: As of Tuesday, U.S. gasoline prices had increased for 32 straight days. The media, however, aren't interested. They would be, though, if a Republican — particularly a Bush — were in the White House.

According to the American Automobile Association, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.748 Tuesday, up from $3.730 on Monday and about 15 cents higher than a week ago.

A month ago that same gallon cost $3.304 and a year back it was $3.565. It was $1.83 a gallon the day before Obama was first inaugurated.

The media are providing a smattering of coverage of the rising prices. But the press is more concerned about President Obama's golf outing with Tiger Woods than it is about gasoline prices. And it sure isn't interested in blaming Obama for the rise.

America's media are offended by high gasoline prices only during a Republican's watch, and acutely so when that member of the GOP is an oil man, such as either president named George Bush.

Here's the history: The Media and Business Institute of the Media Research Center says that from Jan. 18 through Feb. 5, at which time prices had jumped 24 cents, the Big 3 networks had devoted an entire combined eight minutes of air time to the climbing prices.

George W. Bush never enjoyed that protection from the media.

"Although the national average climbed to $3.56 on Feb. 20, setting a February record after going up nearly a month straight," the Media and Business Institute reported a year ago, "there was far less coverage than in 2008." Yet, "Broadcast networks repeatedly covered the rise under the Bush presidency."

In March of last year, the Washington Post tried to explain "Why Obama gets less blame than Bush for high gas prices."

"Voters," according to the Post, "are far less likely to blame Obama for skyrocketing fuel costs than they were President Bush six years ago."

Why? "To begin with," said the Post, "Bush was simply less popular."

Yes, of course. Less popular. And how did that happen? Is it possible that the media had poisoned the public's mind about Bush while holding up Obama as the highest example of all things great and good?

Not only is it possible, it's a certainty.

How many members of the media, for instance, have said Bush was "sort of god" "standing above the country, above the world," as Newsweek editor Evan Thomas rapturously described Obama in 2009?

Who in the press has admitted that the media are susceptible to doing what Bush wants? That's how Time magazine's senior political editor Mark Halperin described the media's relationship with the Obama campaign last year.

After the election, Halperin maligned the "disgusting failure of" the media during the 2012 election. "It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage," he said.

Would the media have scrubbed pro-Bush expressions from an accused multiple murderer's statement, as it did Christopher Dorner's rambling manifesto?

Or ever covered Bush as glowingly as it did Obama during the last week of the 2012 race, a fact unearthed by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism?

Or tried to bury either of Bush's opponents as the media did Obama's challenger throughout 2012, an ugly reality noted by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which editorialized in October that the "pro-Obama press" portrayed "Romney in the harshest possible light"?

While the media continues to function as Obama's publicity department and flagrantly violate the public trust, gasoline prices keep going upward.

They are, in a strong sense, another form of taxation as they are a clear and predictable result of public policy. It's a tax that's more than doubled since Obama — who employed at least two Cabinet members who rooted for higher gasoline prices — took office.

And the media refuse to call him on it. It's a gross disservice that's truly beneath contempt.

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